Video on Instagram vs. Vine

After much speculation as to what the mysterious Facebook announcement would be on 6/20/13, the social media platform released some big news – Instagram (by way of Facebook) announced the launch of an expanded capability – video creation. Blogs are speculating that this announcement was a reaction to the immediate and viral popularity of the up-and-coming six-second video app created by Twitter, Vine.

How Does It Work?

Videos shared from Instagram publish to Facebook the same way as Instagram’s photos do. Videos will auto play in the Instagram feed on most devices, but will not auto play in Facebook’s News Feed. However, users can play the video from the Facebook News Feed directly, without having to open up a new page on their browsers.

Unlike Vine’s videos, the audio for an Instagram video is set to play by default, giving additional importance to audio in creating the 15-second videos. Videos appear in hashtag searches, and in comments and likes the same way as they do on photos. Unlike Instagram photos, however, users cannot currently tag people in videos.

The addition to the app includes the following features:

Fifteen seconds of video, clip by clip (with the ability to edit each clip)

Thirteen new custom filters built specifically for video footage

A cover frame for each video

Accessibility within the Instagram application alongside photos

Availability on both iOS and Android, as well as accessibility via the web

A video stabilization feature called Cinema (currently available for iPhone only)

Hashtag support across Facebook

Implications

Brands have been leveraging Vine for customer testimonial videos, behind-the-scenes footage and to leverage the tease quality inherent with creating short videos (as seen in the Wolverine teaser, released on Vine in March). The Instagram/Facebook version of short videos should provide more incentive for brands and consumers alike to create quick, shareable, fun content. The added video length and editing capabilities of Instagram’s video feature allows the creation of a more cinematic-type of experience, not yet possible on Vine’s six-second video product.

As brands and small businesses examine implementing an Instagram video strategy, here are some things to consider:

Videos must be created using Instagram

Instagram video does not currently offer the ability to pull existing videos in from a library

Vine videos do not play within the Facebook News Feed; Instagram videos do

Instagram videos do not play in a Twitter Feed; Vine videos do

Videos will not auto play in the Facebook News Feed, but are optimized visually to display on Facebook

For an in-depth look at Vine vs. Instagram Video, check out the table below.

That said, with Facebook and Twitter now both having mobile video-creation services, the need for brands to incorporate these platforms into their digital strategy becomes even more important. Visual content continues to thrive – and short, simple videos are becoming integral to a brand’s relevance. There are more than 130 million Instagram users compared to Vine’s 13 million, though despite its small size, Vine users share 12 million videos a day on Twitter. With more than 16 billion photos shared, Instagram’s base is adept at sharing content and this added functionality will make it easier to increase their activity.

Edelman is a leading global communications marketing firm that partners with many of the world’s largest and emerging businesses and organizations, helping them evolve, promote and protect their brands and reputations. Edelman owns specialty firms Edelman Intelligence (research) and United Entertainment Group (entertainment, sports, experiential), a joint venture with United Talent Agency.